The brutal true story behind DaBaby’s song ‘Rock Star’
DaBaby’s tenure as an exciting new artist was shrouded in controversy, but a lot of his songs were somewhat prescient and had a lot of meaning behind them despite what many thought of his delivery and style. That said, in 2020, he released a rather interesting single that few could deny.
Entitled ‘Rockstar’, the 2020 song, DaBaby and Roddy Ricch speak about the gangster lifestyle and how it is similar to the life of rock stars. However, on the track, the production features not the expected electric guitar solo but instead the sound of a firearm.
The chorus hears the Atlanta lyricist rap, “With the pistol on my hip like I’m a cop / Have you ever met a real nigga rockstar? / This ain’t no guitar, bitch, this a Glock!” During his verse, DaBaby recalls a shooting that he was involved in.
In the song, DaBaby told the story of a 2018 shooting outside a Walmart in North Carolina, in which the rapper was allegedly involved. The altercation saw one man fatally shot in the abdomen. Although DaBaby wasn’t charged with the murder of any individual, he was later convicted of misdemeanour carrying a concealed weapon. He was sentenced but was only given a suspended 30-day jail sentence and 12 months of unsupervised probation.
On ‘Rock Star’ the rapper strangely boasted about the incident where his young daughter was present as he rhymed, “My daughter a G / She saw me kill a nigga in front of her before the age of two.” the trap emcee insisted that he’s willing to kill anybody who threatened him and his family. However, he regrets drawing blood in front of his little girl.
For ‘Rockstar’ he also decided to unveil why he had the stage name DaBaby, rapping, “I’m really the baby, she knows that her youngest son was always guaranteed to get the money / She knows that her baby boy was always guaranteed to get the loot.”
As it was released in 2020, the track was remixed following the death of George Floyd. The ‘BLM Remix’ included lines such as, “Cops wanna pull me over, embarrass me / Abusin’ power, you never knew me, thought I was arrogant / As a juvenile” and “Kill another n*gga, break the law, then call us outlaws, n*gga / What happened? Want us to keep it peaceful / Shoulda seen them hatin’ bitches face when I bought that Lamborghini.”
The story behind the original version of ‘Rockstar’ was one of a brutal shooting that brought DaBaby into disrepute but nonetheless is a chilling tale when heard told by the lyricist. It’s the kind of entry into a discography that can male artists turn from participants into leaders of the rap game.